The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architectural framework for delivering internet protocol (IP) multimedia to mobile users over various types of wireless and fixed networks. Through advancements in wireless access technologies, IP based communications for multimedia application services became available for various types of mobile devices. Subscribers of second and third generation mobile communication networks are offered application services which require access to special network subsystems such as the IMS. Examples of such application services include white board discussions, video conferencing, Push to talk over Cellular (PoC), Voice over IP (VoIP), real-time content sharing including video/audio files, instant messaging, interactive gaming, and the like. One of the challenges posed by IP multimedia application services is to provide a good user experience with these media application services across a variety of computing and mobile devices running over diverse networks (e.g., different types of wireless networks, fixed networks, or the like).
The IMS employs Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for session management, including, for example, to establish, modify, and terminate media sessions for various application services. In the IMS paradigm, several application services may be combined into a single session. SIP provides a control architecture which is able to handle the corresponding messages and sessions.
A number of application services are based on more than one protocol. For example, some applications include communication based on the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) between a client and the network. However, the IMS does not provide any means to handle protocols other than SIP. Accordingly, the system and method described herein relates to routing non-SIP messages via the IMS.